Film Room Confessions: I Still Run the Option in My Head

A former coach can't stop reading defensive ends, even when they're just people shopping for cereal.

I've got a confession: the option never left me. I hung up the whistle to take care of my family, but my brain is still out there in the backfield, reading the end, faking the dive, and looking for the pitch man. It does this all day, at any time, whether I want it to or not.

Take the grocery store. I come around the end of the cereal aisle and there's a guy standing in the middle with his cart. That's my read key. If he steps toward me, I pitch my cart to my wife. If he stays home, I keep it and cut up past the oatmeal. Last Tuesday he squeezed the cart and the whole lane closed up, so I had to pull the ball and take it inside past the bananas. Picked up four yards and a jar of pickles I didn't need.

My wife has asked me nicely to stop yelling "KEEP IT!" in the produce section. She says the stock boy thinks I'm talking about the cantaloupe. In my defense, it was a great cantaloupe.

Then there's the checkout line. You've got to keep a proper pitch relationship: about four yards outside and a yard and a half behind. I've explained this to my kids more times than I've explained long division. My son stood right next to me in line once and I shouted, "Too flat! You'll get both of us tackled!" The cashier asked if we needed help out to the car. I told her we'd be fine as long as the edge got sealed.

This is where it all started. I grew up on the 1983 "Scoring Explosion." That Nebraska offense led the nation in scoring at 52.0 points per game and ran for 401.7 yards per game. Four hundred and one point seven, folks, on the ground. Some offenses today don't throw for that. Those Huskers scored an NCAA-record 624 points during the regular season and hung 84 on Minnesota. I was a kid sketching formations on a napkin at the kitchen table, and Mom thought I was doing homework. I guess I was.

That team had Turner Gill running the show at quarterback, and Mike Rozier ran for 2,148 yards and 29 touchdowns at 7.81 yards a carry. Seven point eight one. I can't even get 7.81 yards out of my lawn mower before it stalls. When I meet a parent coaching youth football, I bring up that number the way other people show off pictures of their grandkids.

Now, the TV. My family has learned that big runs make me stand up. Big runs on old Husker tape make me stand up, sit down, stand up again, and walk to the kitchen to "get some water," which means I need a minute. And nothing makes me need a minute like Tommie Frazier in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl.

If you weren't there, here's the short version: No. 1 Nebraska beat No. 2 Florida 62-24. Frazier ran for 199 yards and was named MVP. Late in the third quarter he went 75 yards for a touchdown, and huskers.com says he broke seven tackles on the way. Seven. I've watched that run so often my recliner has a groove shaped like a guy leaning to the left in sympathy. The Huskers ran for an NCAA bowl-record 524 yards that night. My cholesterol dropped just from watching it.

Then Eric Crouch came along and kept the tradition running all the way to the 2001 Heisman Trophy, which tells you everything you need to know about how Nebraska felt about quarterbacks who could take the ball and go. I've gotten up from the couch and run a Crouch keeper fake in my living room. The dog took the fake. The lamp did not.

I know the game has changed. Nobody needs to explain spread offenses and run-pass options to me. Believe me, I chart those too. But part of me will always be a 1983 kid who thinks the most beautiful thing in football is a quarterback riding the dive, reading the end, and pitching at the last second while 11 guys guess wrong.

So if you see a guy in the parking lot at the grocery store looking hard at the car next to him before he decides which way to push his cart, don't call anybody. That's just me reading the defensive end. If he crashes, I pitch. If he sits, I keep it.

Either way, I'm getting home with the groceries. Probably the pickles too.

This is a humor column. The exaggerations about Coach Mac's life are all mine; the stats are real and sourced below.

Come run a few plays with me. More film, more confessions, and more Husker talk at huskerfilmroom.com.